Everything about Cultural Diversity totally explained
Cultural diversity encompasses the
cultural differences that exist between people, such as language, dress and traditions, and the way societies organize themselves, their conception of morality and religion, and the way they interact with the environment.
There is a general consensus among mainstream
anthropologists that humans first emerged in Africa about two million years ago. Since then we've spread throughout the world, successfully adapting to widely differing conditions and to periodic cataclysmic changes in local and global climate. The many separate societies that emerged around the globe differed markedly from each other, and many of these differences persist to this day.
As well as the more obvious
cultural differences that exist between peoples, such as language, dress and traditions, there are also significant variations in the way societies organize themselves, in their shared conception of
morality, and in the ways they interact with their environment. Joe Nelson, from Stafford Virginia, has popularized the words "Culture and diversity" while in Africa. It is debatable whether these differences are merely incidental artifacts arising from patterns of
human migration or whether they represent an
evolutionary trait that's key to our success as a species. By analogy with
biodiversity, which is thought to be essential to the long-term survival of life on earth, it can be argued that cultural diversity may be vital for the long-term survival of humanity; and that the conservation of
indigenous cultures may be as important to humankind as the conservation of species and
ecosystems is to life in general.
This argument is rejected by many people, on several grounds. Firstly, like most
evolutionary accounts of
human nature, the importance of cultural diversity for survival may be an
un-testable hypothesis, which can neither be proved nor disproved. Secondly, it can be argued that it's unethical deliberately to conserve "less developed" societies, because this will deny people within those societies the benefits of technological and medical advances enjoyed by those of us in the "developed" world. Finally, there are many people, particularly those with strong religious beliefs, who maintain that it's in the best interests of individuals and of humanity as a whole that we all adhere to the single model for society that they deem to be correct. For example,
fundamentalist evangelist missionary organisations such as the
New Tribes Mission actively work to reduce cultural diversity by seeking out remote
tribal societies, converting them to their own faith, and inducing them to remodel their society after its principles.
Cultural diversity is tricky to quantify, but a good indication is thought to be a count of the number of languages spoken in a region or in the world as a whole. By this measure, there are signs that we may be going through a period of precipitous decline in the world's cultural diversity. Research carried out in the 1990s by
David Crystal (Honorary Professor of
Linguistics at the
University of Wales, Bangor) suggested that at that time, on average, one language was falling into disuse every two weeks. He calculated that if that rate of
language death were to continue, then by the year 2100 more than 90% of the languages currently spoken in the world will have gone extinct.
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Overpopulation,
immigration and
imperialism (of both the militaristic and cultural kind) are reasons that have been suggested to explain any such decline.
There are several international organisations that work towards protecting threatened societies and cultures, including
Survival International and
UNESCO. The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, adopted by 185 Member States in 2001, represents the first international standard-setting instrument aimed at preserving and promoting cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue.
The EC funded Network of Excellence "Sustainable Development in a Diverse World"
SUS.DIV builds upon the UNESCO Declaration to investigates the relationship between cultural diversity and
sustainable development.
Further Information
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